Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: chiralSPO on 12/02/2016 22:00:53

Title: Can we get NMR spectroscopic data in space?
Post by: chiralSPO on 12/02/2016 22:00:53

Planets like Jupiter and Saturn have fairly strong magnetic fields that are fairly homogeneous within small regions. Would it be possible to take advantage of those fields by irradiating subjects of interest (say a portion of a Saturnian ring) with radio frequencies and measuring either the relaxation time, or even get a chemical shift of species in that region?

One could also imagine looking for information about the atmospheres of magnetars based on the radiowaves they themselves emit interacting with their atmosphere within their magnetosphere... (this might be just way to hard to deconvolute...)

Title: Re: Can we get NMR spectroscopic data in space?
Post by: alancalverd on 12/02/2016 23:17:48

You can do NMR imaging with the earth's magnetic field. Optical spectroscopy seems adequate for studying planetary atmospheres. You'd have a serious practicl problem extracting the NMR signal from the radio noise of the gas giants.